How has Twitter Mailbag made it this far without referencing Hannibal (the general, not the movie character)? I’m not sure, but that ends now.

In this installment of TMB, we discuss B.J. Penn’s future and his legacy, what it means for Alexander Gustafsson to have a Jon Jones-esque body type, and how retiring is sometimes the smartest thing a fighter can do.

To ask a question of your own, get on the Twitter, and tell it to take you straight to @BenFowlkesMMA. I’ll be there. Reading. Watching. Judging.

Daniel Rubenstein @dannyrube
@benfowlkesMMA what fight are you most looking forward to this weekend? #TwitterMailbag #PickMePickMe

I’m very interested to see how the fight between Rousimar Palhares and Hector Lombard plays out, but, I’ll admit, maybe not for the most honorable of reasons. I want to see it because one of them has a penchant for doing weird stuff, and the other is an unnervingly intense dude with something to prove. I can’t say for sure that it will be a good fight, but it does have all the ingredients to be a memorable one.

As for the fight I’m looking forward to in the this-is-going-to-be-awesome sense, I have to say Pat Barry vs. Shane del Rosario. I never get tired of watching Barry fight, and I’m eager to see what del Rosario can do once he gets his feet under him in the UFC and gets back in the groove. That bout has violence written all over it, and I can’t wait.

Kevin Thang @Skip2MyJays
@benfowlkesMMA with the recent retirements of Denis & Hominick, will we see more fighters walking away from the sport before it’s too late?

I was caught off-guard by Hominick’s retirement. I know things hadn’t been going well for him lately, and four losses in a row might make any fighter rethink his options, but at 30 years old and with 10 years in the sport, I just didn’t expect him to be able to pull that plug that swiftly.

And, who knows, maybe this is one of those retirements that won’t take the first time. We see that often enough in this business. But any time a fighter is able to be honest enough with himself to know that it’s time to stop – and when he actually can stop without feeling like he has no other way to make a living – I’m encouraged. It suggests that maybe the stereotype of the broken-down old fighter still chasing one more payday doesn’t have to be a reality for MMA competitors.

Whether they’re calling it quits because they’ve seen their prospects dim or they’re worried about the damage they’ve absorbed, anyone who starts thinking that he or she wants out should go ahead and get out. This is not a sport you want to be halfway in. Hopefully the young fighters coming up will see the example set by guys such Hominick, and not just the depressing counter-example set by the ones who didn’t know when to quit.

Jozef Kuracina @mojocanadian
@benfowlkesMMA Do u thnk Rory Mac is behaving naturally & maybe even unaware of the percption, or do u think its a cleverly crafted persona?

I think it’s the first one, mostly because I doubt he is capable of the second one. That’s not me knocking his acting skills, by the way. That’s me acknowledging that, most people, when they set themselves to crafting a persona, don’t go the subtle route.

I mean, look at Chael Sonnen. To do the creepy, emotionless psycho thing, but to do it via little cues like the flat tone of voice, the empty stare, the fixation on fashion that somehow only becomes weirder when it’s a young Canadian fighter doing it, that’s all pretty nuanced. It’d be one thing if he were running around acting like Mankind or talking to imaginary people and telling stories about torturing small animals. Then I’d say it was an act. But with the way our perception of him has evolved gradually the more we’ve gotten to know him, that makes me think he’s finally getting comfortable enough in the spotlight to be himself. My guess is he has no idea that that person is kind of terrifying to the rest of us.

Paul Silva @ThePaulSilva
@benfowlkesMMA Do you see Gustafsson as a threat to Jones or are size similarities all it is? Will JJ be thrown off by fighting a real LHW?

Alexander Gustafsson is definitely a threat to Jon Jones. The question is, how big of a threat and why? We have to be careful about assuming that, just because they have similar builds, they’re similarly equipped to use them. That’s just not the case, and it seems like a point that the champ wouldn’t mind making, at least judging by what he told us in Seattle before Gustafsson’s fight with “Shogun” Rua.

“There’s a lot of critics that say my height and my reach advantage is the only reason I’ve gotten to the point where I’m at, and fighting Gustafsson would really nullify those critics,” said Jones, adding later that he was all for that fight at some point because he wants to “really educate the fans and show them that a frame doesn’t make you the person that you are. It’s about what you do, decisions you make, and how you play the game.”

I’ve got to admit he has a point. There are probably a lot of people walking the earth with tall, lanky physiques. There’s still only one Jon “Bones” Jones. As we saw in the Rua fight, Gustafsson is very good, but I’m not sure he’s got what it takes to beat the most dominant light-heavyweight champ in years. Not yet, anyway.

Nate @BurgersMMA
@benfowlkesMMA who’s next in line at LW if Cerrone wins? @ufc won’t want him fighting a guy who he’s 0-2 vs in Bendo. #tmb

If Anthony Pettis beats Donald Cerrone, then yeah, his next fight will probably be for a title. If Cerrone wins, then Gilbert Melendez’s case for a UFC/Strikeforce lightweight title unification match gets that much stronger. That seems about right to me. I wouldn’t mind seeing either of those fights, though if Pettis somehow pulls off another crazy move on a par with the “Showtime Kick,” I’m worried that my head might actually explode.

Matt Giesbrecht @MattGiesbrecht
@benfowlkesMMA With Cruz injured again, how long should a champ be out before being stripped of their title? Or keep creating interim belts?

We touched on this in a previous TMB, but this is getting to be a tough question, especially as the date for Cruz’s return drags on. At this point, the UFC could definitely justify stripping him of the title and foregoing the interim nonsense, at least officially, when Renan Barao and Michael McDonald meet. The problem is, even if you call the winner of that fight the outright UFC bantamweight champ, we’ll all still be waiting for Cruz to come back. We’ll still think of it as an interim title, even if it’s not.

Call me crazy, but I still think that would be better than creating interim titles every time the champion is temporarily indisposed. I’d prefer it simply because stripping a champion of his title is such a drastic step that I doubt the UFC would be quite as eager to take it. Then some real thought might go into the creation of new, not-yet-earned titles. Wouldn’t that be something?

Josh Kuipers @kuipjak
@benfowlkesMMA How do BJ’s last 5 fights affect his legacy? How will we think about him in 10 years? #tmb

What he does next will determine a lot about how B.J. Penn is remembered. If he retires now, after taking yet another brutal beating from a bigger, younger fighter in a weight class he really had no business in, we’ll remember him as a great lightweight (maybe even the greatest) who was occasionally led into trouble by his own ambition. If he doesn’t retire now, my guess is he’ll only end up tossing more losses onto the heap of his already complicated legacy, making it harder and harder to see through to the genius of his lightweight prime.

Maybe I’m wrong. I know there are plenty of Penn fans out there who foam with rage even if you even suggest that their hero should pack it in. These people either want him to go back down to lightweight (where there’s no reason to think he’ll capture a title, as long as Benson Henderson is still around), or they want to see him hanging around at welterweight and fighting easier opponents just for the hell of it (how’d that work out for Matt Hughes, by the way?).

The thing I don’t get about these fans is that they seem to want Penn around at almost any cost. Even if it means he gets goaded into taking punishing beatings that he’s too stubborn to resist – which, come on, we all know will eventually happen again since someone is going to call him out and Penn won’t be able to say no – they don’t care. They love him enough to buy the T-shirts, but not enough to want to see him quit before something bad happens.

I’ve loved watching Penn fight over the years, but coming into this most recent bout, I found myself hoping only that, whatever happened, it wouldn’t be a lengthy, depressing beatdown. Of course, that’s exactly what it was, and it was exactly as hard to watch as I thought it would be. I could really do without that from here on out. I just hope Penn feels the same.

Josh Kuipers @kuipjak
@benfowlkesMMA What 2012 storyline did you enjoy covering the most? What one storyline do you most hope goes away in 2013? #tmb

The topic I would most love to never have to think or talk or write about ever again is definitely testosterone-replacement therapy. I’m not sure if it counts as a “storyline,” but man, I really hope that goes away. The sooner the better. The thing is, as long as fighters are still doing it and commissions/promotions are still allowing if not outright encouraging it, I’m going to be writing about it. We can’t just ignore it because we’re sick of it. We can only ignore it when our sport gets rid of it, which it should do immediately.

As for the story I’ve most enjoyed this year, I have to say it was the rise of women’s MMA. Between Ronda Rousey’s success and the attention she’s brought to the women’s division, to the work of Invicta FC, there’s a lot of exciting stuff happening with female fighting these days.

What’s always interested me about women’s MMA is that, with all the talk that male fighters do about being warriors who were born to fight and would do it for free and all that cliche stuff, it’s in the women’s division that you really find out whether it’s true. There’s still so little money and fame in it that you almost have to be a little crazy to want to do this sport as a woman.

It’s not like fighting is something that is encouraged among women in our culture. It’s not like there are even all that many people who think it’s a cool thing for women to be doing. You know those weird looks people give you when you tell them that you’re into watching this barbaric cagefighting stuff? Imagine how much weirder those looks would be if you were a woman, and instead of just watching it you were into doing it.

With all those reasons not to do it, the fact that any woman chooses this life and sticks with it is borderline amazing. Now that it finally seems to be going somewhere – even after the disappointing end to the last time it seemed to be going somewhere, with the whole Gina Carano thing – it feels like one of those rare instances where the people who deserve recognition and rewards are finally getting both.

Matthew Polly @MatthewEPolly
@benfowlkesMMA You are a big fan of Diaz brothers despite their often shabby treatment of you. Are U suffering from Stockton-holm Syndrome?

First of all, I wouldn’t describe the Diaz brothers’ treatment of me as “shabby.” I mean, yes, there was that one time I went out to Stockton and waited around for three days and never got Nick Diaz to show up for a single interview. But then, when I went out to Stockton a couple years later to do a story on Nate, they were both helpful and open and gracious. It was actually kind of weird.

But even when the Diaz brothers are difficult to deal with, they’re still so much fun to watch. They seem so incapable of deception or posturing or, at times, even basic politeness, that it makes them perhaps the most genuine people in this sport, for better or worse. I don’t always agree with their philosophy on fighting (or their approach to media relations), but at least you know they’re not trying to fool you.

Jeff Smith @NSmit16
@benfowlkesMMA Where did Dennis Siver’s win over Nam Phan put him in the line for the 145 title? #twittermailbag

Can we stop for a second and talk about how good Siver looked against Phan on Saturday? For starters, I don’t know how he makes 145 pounds. When he showed up backstage to be interviewed after his dominating victory, it looked like somebody had put an MMA T-shirt on an air conditioning unit. When we asked him what he weighed by the time he stepped into the cage, he just chuckled and said in English: “A little bit more than yesterday.”

The dude is just solid, and I don’t envy any featherweight who has to tussle with him. The next one who’ll try is Cub Swanson, who’s been knocking people out left and right lately, but who might have a problem if he has to lock up with Siver in close or on the mat. If Siver wins that – and especially if puts Swanson away – I’d have no trouble seeing him fight for the title next.

Mr. Cthulhu Kitten @cthulhukitten
@BenfowlkesMMA who has the best chance for getting the Ceasar Gracie camp UFC gold? Nick or Gilbert? #TMB

My money’s on Gilbert Melendez there. I love watching Nick Diaz fight, and I expect he’ll give Georges St-Pierre a good scrap, but I don’t see him winning that one. I know a lot of people are fired up about him even being given the title shot, what with that whole coming off a loss thing. I agree with them in principle. Winning your last fight – really, actually winning, not just losing a close decision – should be the bare minimum requirement for getting a title shot. At the same time, it’s hard for me to be too upset when I really want to see the fight, as illogical as it is right now.

Albert Heredia @albertrebla
@benfowlkesMMA With Rousey now in the UFC and a shallow WMMA class, can you ever see Rousey making a top 10 p4p list?

First of all, pound-for-pound lists are meaningless and dumb and I hate even thinking about them. I know how much the Internet loves to rank things, and MMA loves everything the Internet loves, especially being jerks to each other anonymously, but I feel like we would lose absolutely nothing if we all agreed to never argue about pound-for-pound distinctions ever again. You can’t even get people to agree on what it means, much less why it matters. As for whether Rousey will ever make one of these meaningless lists, I say sure, but only if: 1) we make separate meaningless lists for men and women, or 2) she beats up Dominick Cruz. Sometime tells me one of those possibilities is a lot more likely than the other.

Duncan Priebe @DuncanPriebe
@benfowlkesMMA I hate violence, but I love MMA. Are these values incongruent? #TMB

I guess it depends what, exactly, you hate about violence. If it’s the basic part where one person does something that physically harms another person, regardless of the context, then yeah, you might have an internal inconsistency with your moral code there. But I suspect that when you say you hate violence, what you mean is the kind of real world violence that usually (though not always) takes place in a situation where only one of the parties involved actually wants it to. Person hurting another person who just wants to be left alone? Not cool. Two people agreeing to engage in a violent competition under predetermined rules? That’s a different situation.

Fighters and promoters and sometimes even media love to compare MMA fighters to gladiators. It’s not a great comparison (no one is being forced to fight to the death in MMA), and it’s become a cliche, but it is worth reminding ourselves that gladiatorial contests served as more than just idle entertainment for bloodthirsty mobs (though they were that too, at times). They were also living morality plays. When the ancient Romans watched people fighting in the arena, they saw for themselves the value and dignity that courage conferred on a person, even in death, and the unending shame of cowardice, even if it saved your life. They got lessons on how to live and how to die. It was a form of communication. The Carthaginian general Hannibal, when he needed to send a message to his multi-ethnic army before an important battle with the Romans, cut through the language barrier by holding a gladiatorial contest among captured prisoners. The losers died. The ones who declined to participate remained prisoners/slaves. The winner got a horse, a sword and a little bit of money. He had won his freedom through combat. You can imagine that Hannibal’s troops got the message about what was at stake in that battle, even if they couldn’t all talk to one another about it.

It’s not so different in MMA, even if we put a different value on human life than ancient people did. In this sport we see the nobility of even a futile struggle. We see the value of refusing to give up. We’re forced into feeling empathy for the losers, even when it’s sometimes unpleasant. In the cruelly quick career life cycle of professional fighters, we also get a lesson in the inevitability of decay, along with a few different philosophies on dealing with it. I think that’s all good stuff. It doesn’t make you a bad person for liking the violent nature of the struggle. Not as long as you pause every once in a while, as you seem to have done, to think about what you’re watching and why. Then go ahead and enjoy some face-smashing good times.

Ben Fowlkes is MMAjunkie.com and USA TODAY’s MMA columnist. Follow him on Twitter at @BenFowlkesMMA. Twitter Mailbag appears every Thursday on MMAjunkie.com.

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